Articles

Romance Protection
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Question:
We just finished a sex harassment investigation and the investigator concluded that the woman alleging harassment had a worse mouth than the guy she'd named as her harasser. Although we're out of the woods on this one, the investigator told us that a senior manager is secretly dating the receptionist. What do we have to do to make sure this romance doesn't turn into a new disaster?

Please don't just tell us to try to talk sense to the manager. We did and he's not thinking with his head. He told us he has the right to do what he wants to on his own time and since he and the receptionist are both consenting adults of legal age their romance is none of our business. He told us he highly resents the fact that we'd even suggest he would harass anyone.

We checked with an attorney who told us the manager is correct that a relationship between consenting adults isn't harassment, but that we have the right as an employer to tell him that we prohibit any conduct that would constitute sexual harassment. We don't want to lose this manager by ticking him off but we also don't want to wind up with another problem in two months. Can you help? Should we just leave the situation alone for now?

Answer:
You can run but you can't hide, nor would you want to. If you just leave the situation alone, you leave a slightly ticked off manager and a situation that could unravel into a lawsuit, taking your company with it.
Ask your manager to come back in. Let him know you think you and he got off on the wrong foot in your first meeting. Explain that you don't want details about his relationship or to interfere with his personal life. Add that you value his commitment to the sex harassment policy and that because you and he share a risk should a problem later surface, from the receptionist or a third party, you want to protect your company and him.

Next, meet separately with the receptionist and let her know that you don't want to interfere in her personal life, but as her employer you have a duty to ask if she feels any level of sexual harassment. If she says "I'm not harassed and this is totally none of your business," document that statement, place it in her personnel file and furnish it to your attorney as proof that you conducted a good faith effort to protect your employee.

To further protect your company, along with this employee and manager, implement a sex harassment policy stating that you have zero tolerance for sex harassment by any supervisor or employee. Ask that anyone who sees or hears about sexual harassment or feels sexually harassed promptly tell any senior manager about his or her concerns. Publicize this policy.

Employment attorney Joan Rohlf also suggests you remind both the manager and employee that they need to keep their personal relationship completely out of the workplace. Says Rohlf, "In situations like this, the issue of harassment may arise from other employees who observe inappropriate behavior between the two. Even if the manager and employee are involved in a purely consensual relationship, their behavior can lead to legitimate complaints by other employees. At a minimum you need to take steps to remove this manager from making any performance evaluation, discipline, career advancement or compensations decisions or recommendations concerning the receptionist. Otherwise you risk morale problems or favoritism complaints."

Then, if this relationship ends, monitor the situation to ensure that neither the manager nor the employee is acting inappropriately toward the other. Your monitoring may include meeting again with both the supervisor and the employee and reminding them of their duties and rights under the sex harassment policy.

Next, to prevent future problems, provide all your employees sex harassment training, Training demonstrates your good faith effort to provide a harassment-free environment and provides two special benefits. First, as a neutral third party the trainer can clarify to all managers the huge risks they run with workplace romances. For example, most managers don't realize they face individual liability for harassment. They also don't realize that even if the person they have the relationship with never files suit, others who might make false accusations can point to the manager's romance as evidence that makes their allegations seem more probable. Second, training shows employees tempted to file frivolous allegations that the some of the comments they might perceive as harassment don't rise to a level that would excite either a jury or a neutral investigator. Finally, should this current relationship end, ask your attorney to if you can implement a "no-dating" policy prohibiting supervisors from dating their own direct subordinates to prevent future problems.